Constraints on neutrino lifetime from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

Abstract

The long baseline between Earth and the Sun makes solar neutrinos an excellent test beam for exploring possible neutrino decay. The signature of such decay would be an energy-dependent distortion of the traditional survival probability which can be fit for using well-developed and high-precision analysis methods. Here a model including neutrino decay is fit to all three phases of ⁸B solar neutrino data taken by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). This fit constrains the lifetime of neutrino mass state ν₂ to be >8.08×10⁻⁵ s/eV at 90% confidence. An analysis combining this SNO result with those from other solar neutrino experiments results in a combined limit for the lifetime of mass state ν₂ of >1.92×10⁻³ s/eV at 90% confidence.